F6
FARM & RANCH
THE NORTH PLATTE TELEGRAPH
AUGUST 2020
Despite COVID-19 rules, detasseling mostly same
this detasseling season hasn’t changed. Targeting tassels Machines can cut and pull 90% to 95% of the target corn plant tas- sels, but detasselers’ keen eyes and strong hands are needed to fin- ish the job. The process starts with planting corn in a five-row pattern. One is the “male” row that breeders want to be the pollinator. The oth- er four “female” rows must be detasseled so they don’t pollinate themselves. Brian said the goal is to remove 99.8% of the female plants’ tassels. That requires at least two “pulls.” First, each detassel- er walks down a row of corn pulling tas- sels and comes back through the field pulling tassels in an ad- jacent row. For the second pull 48 hours later, four de- tasselers walk the four female rows again looking for anything missed or growing back. They are followed
by a crew chief who has at least five years of de- tasseling experience. The Hagans expect to cover approximately 2,200 acres in the next three weeks, Brian said, with all fields pro- ducing DEKALB brand corn seed for the Bayer Crop Science — former- ly Monsanto — plant at Kearney. All detasselers and support crew wear bright orange, wide- brimmed hats with attached net face guards. Hallie said they wrote the name of each worker on his or her hat this year to help in keeping records of rows covered by each. Those walking through the fields also wear company-issued protective glasses, gloves and corn husk yellow “arm socks” with the DEKALB logo that features a winged ear of corn. “We used to make our own arm socks,” Hallie said. “We bought tube socks and would cut out the toe part.” “And make a little hole for the thumb,”
By LORI POTTER Kearney Hub
KEARNEY — As machines and other technologies contin- ue to shrink hands-on work along the farm-to- fork agriculture chain, many hands still are required each July to assure correct genetics are in corn grown as next year’s seed. Starting this week, 500 to 600 workers in their teens and 20s are detasseling in corn- fields roughly between Overton and Alda on both sides of the Platte River, said Robert Gray, site leader for Bayer Crop Science’s Kearney regional seed production plant. Gray said the com- pany works with a handful of detassel- ing contractors. Hagan Detasseling, which is owned by Brian and Hallie Hagan of Kearney, is one of the larger contractors. Hallie said that ex- cept for following COVID-19 health di- rectives from Bayer and the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, most of what they’re doing
Lori Potter / Kearney Hub Micah Torres, left, and Austin Young, both of Kearney, walk through chin- high corn southeast of Funk while pulling tassels missed by the detasseling machines. They are Hagan Detasseling crew members who left Kearney’s Harvey Park on buses at 5:38 a.m. Wednesday and were working in the corn- field by 6:30.
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